Paul Dano stars as a lonely young writer who pens his dream girl into existence in this week's psychological romance Ruby Sparks.

In addition to being written by his real-life girlfriend Zoe Kazan (who also plays Ruby), the film reunites Dano with Little Miss Sunshine helmers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who directed him in what would become his breakthrough role.

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"We thought of them maybe 15 pages into Zoe writing [the script]," Dano told Digital Spy. "I didn't even know where the story was going, but they popped into my head."

He went on to describe his involvement in Kazan's writing process.

"She would show me pages. She doesn't normally do that, but we decided pretty early on that we would try to do it together.

"I would just try to be a good bounce board â€“ I would give feedback when I could, and sometimes I would not give feedback and just try to be a good boyfriend!"